He’d probably just hang up.

But I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself. Not any more. I strode through the rain, my head held high, past the bookshops where my short stories would soon be on sale, past the college where I met Siobhan, towards the place where I watched a woman die. And then I was there, pressing the buzzer that now bore the name Elaine Meadows.

She buzzed me in. Climbing the stairs, I felt the now-familiar ache of my bruises, saw the faces of the men who had beaten me up. And then I was looking into the face of the woman who could have caused me a lot more pain.

I recognised Elaine from her photo in the paper, but I was shocked by how diminutive she was. Since I’d read that newspaper article I’d begun to see her as this behemoth, casting a huge shadow over my life. But she looked like Kylie Minogue’s smaller sister. She had long auburn hair and a face that had been in the sun too long, with deep crow’s feet spreading from the corners of her eyes.

She let me in and I noticed that she was breathing heavily. So was I.

‘So, you’ve been here before,’ was the first thing she said.

I nodded. ‘Just the once.’

‘The night Kathy died.’

‘That’s right.’ A moment of silence. ‘Have you got anything to drink?’

She beckoned for me to follow her through to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got beer, or do you want something strong? Whiskey? Vodka?’

‘Beer’s fine.’

We went back into the living room and she gestured for me to sit down. I looked out the window, thinking for the second time what a wonderful view it was. Perhaps that was why Elaine couldn’t resist this flat.

‘There’s nobody here, is there? Nobody hiding in the bedroom?’

She shook her head. ‘You can go and check if you like.’

‘You’re very calm,’ I said. ‘For all you know, I could be a vicious murderer who killed your friend and is about to do the same to you.’

She blinked. ‘Then I guess I’m taking a risk.’ She smiled. ‘And I suppose I should warn you, I studied judo in Japan. So if you try anything…’

‘You were in Japan? Me too. I lived in Tokyo.’

‘I was in Tokyo and Osaka,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeah, I visited…’ I stopped myself. What the hell was I doing? Chit-chatting? I reminded myself why I was here. I couldn’t afford to build any kind of attachment to this woman. She was the enemy, the woman who could take away my freedom. She had vowed to find the person who was responsible for Kathy’s death, and I was the only suspect.

I could tell her the truth about what happened but I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Who would? It was such an unlikely story. Which was why I had to do this.

‘Isn’t it strange, living here?’ I said, unable to resist the chit-chat after all. Knowing that by asking her questions I was delaying what I was going to do. But I also knew that I was going to need at least one bottle of beer inside me before I did it.

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘Did you hear about obon when you lived in Japan?’

‘You’ll have to remind me.’

‘The Japanese believe that every summer their dead relatives come back to visit them. That’s why so many people leave Tokyo in August and go back to their hometowns. I always liked the idea of that – of the dead visiting their old homes. Which is why I like the idea of hanging around and meeting up with Kathy’s spirit when she comes calling.’

‘Were you..?’

‘An item? Lovers? Yes, we were. She was the love of my life.’

‘So why did you go away?’

She shrugged. ‘Things go wrong, don’t they?’

I could relate to that. Even if I couldn’t relate to the idea of waiting for your ex’s ghost to come creeping up on you. I took another big swig of beer, closed my eyes, focussed.

‘I want to show you what happened,’ I said, standing up.

‘Show me?’

‘Yes, out on the fire escape.’

She looked doubtful. But I said, ‘Look, Elaine, you need to trust me. I have to show you; it’s too complicated just to tell you. Otherwise I’m going to leave now and then you’ll have to wait for Kathy’s spirit to come and explain it instead.’

I saw her weigh up her options. She didn’t know anything about me. But there was something about her that made me confident that she would accept my invitation. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time – this vibe she was giving off – though I understand it now.

She put her drink on the carpet and stood up. ‘Alright. Let’s go.’

She opened the window that led to the fire escape and I said, ‘After you.’

She stepped out onto the metal structure and I followed her. It was still raining and the wind had really picked up, howling around the building, forcing me to raise my voice so Elaine could hear me.

‘We were both drunk,’ I said, ‘and Kathy said we should go up onto the roof where the view was better. I didn’t really want to go, but she was insistent. We came out here and then – well, let’s go a little higher and I’ll show you.’

She looked doubtful now, but I also knew she was so desperate to know the truth. She had clearly been obsessing over it ever since she’d got back from her travels. That was the power I had over her: only I could set her mind at rest. If only the truth was more plausible. Because I was convinced that, if I didn’t do something drastic, the following was going to happen:

After I told Elaine what had happened she would call the police and tell them what I’d said. Of course, the police would want to talk to me because I was a witness who hadn’t stepped forward before, which was suspicious in itself. Then they would start digging in my past and find out about Siobhan. Next, they would talk to Siobhan and decide that I was jealous of Kathy because I thought Kathy and Siobhan were about to embark on a lesbian affair. That gave me the motivation to murder Kathy.

Standing on the fire escape, the rain making the metal slippery, I knew that if I walked out of that flat with Elaine still alive, the police would have me in an interview room by the next morning.

‘This is where she fell from,’ I said. We were standing near the top of the fire escape, a few steps from the roof. I pointed towards the adjacent block of flats and said, ‘Look,’ so that Elaine turned away from me.

I began to reach out. All I had to do was push her and she would go over the edge, down to the same spot where Kathy had landed. Grief-stricken woman commits suicide. It would have perfect symmetry. Nobody knew I was here. There was nothing to connect me to this. Push her, and it would all be over.

I reached out further.

On my way home, I stopped at Camden Lock and sat down on a bench overlooking the water. Traffic rushed down Camden High Street. Teenagers queued outside a nearby music venue, their whole lives ahead of them. I lit a cigarette and enjoyed each drag. I could hear a couple screaming at each other in a nearby flat and I wondered if they thought they loved each other. Did they fight and scream and then collapse into bed, professing eternal love while the next row brewed inside them? Did they have a child who was listening now, cowering in the next room, desperate to grow up and get out? A child who heard his parents alternately fighting and fucking in the name of love.

Love.

It’s a bitch.

Elaine Meadows loved Kathy but something went wrong and she left the country. But she never stopped loving her. When she turned back to me on that fire escape, after I had realised that I couldn’t do it, that I could never kill anyone, that I would rather die in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, she had tears rolling down her face.

‘She was drunk,’ I told her, ‘and she came up the steps too fast. And she slipped – it was simple as that. I reached out to try to grab her but she was beyond my reach.’ I was crying myself now. ‘And I ran, all the way home, and I didn’t tell anyone that I’d been here, because I was convinced that everyone would think I pushed her. I was so scared and so fucking stupid. And I’m so sorry.’